Here’s Why It’s Time to Kill “Cinematic Universes”

There are a few phrases the Internets have made up in attempt to knock big budget films or Hollywood as a machine and for awhile I was defending Hollywood, reluctantly, but I’m starting to wonder if I should join the other side like Kevin Durant did with Golden State (ooh burn!). To those phrases I hinted at, they are “superhero fatigue” and “cinematic universe”. They are obvious terms if you know anything about superhero movies of today, but it goes beyond just comic book movies.

The times of one off films are not gone, but definitely diminishing. Maybe it’s just a phase that films are going into, like some form of puberty or mid life crisis, but it’s time to return the red Ferrari and get back your Corrola, for those car people out there. Hollywood and films, for the most part, are made to make money and share a vision, but mainly to make money. It’s no fault of Marvel’s for making quality films and setting up a universe the way they did. In fact, they should be praised for being the first ones to do it, but also to do it well, it’s the copy cat world of big film studios that should get the fingers pointed at them.

Contrary to ignorant belief, sequels and universes and spin offs have happened before, but they weren’t these larger than life movies like we have today. Even with Jaws we got about a million dumb sequels that were supposedly tied to the first one to some capacity, but obviously no one sees it that way. The problem with any overblown, large budget film tends to be the lack of good storytelling. The MCU is a winner for us all because Marvel made stories we cared about that fit well with each other. If studios can do that then great, but it’s when the originality falls short or just doesn’t show up is when I get angry. Like Hollywood does, they follow trends and that’s the problem we are facing with forced (aka fake) desire for diversity whether it be for women or for people of different ethnicities, but that’s how the greedy machine works.